belief in equality became tangible. A black classmate there, Haywood Burns, became a good friend.
We discussed our studies, our society and our personal lives. He was the quarterback and I was the
end on the intramural football team. Haywood had a saxophone and I had a trumpet, but neither of
us took lessons or knew how to play the instrument. One memorable evening, we played together
on a bank of the Charles River until the police, prompted by phone calls from residents irritated by
the noise echoing off the water, came and stopped us. He was best man at my wedding. He planned
a future in civil rights work while I thought I would become an international lawyer. But we agreed
on what constituted justice. For any portion of society to suggest that the difference in our races
should be a basis for legal or social separation was ludicrous.

In 1963 my wife and I had summer jobs in Washington. Some fellow workers spoke
fearfully of the civil rights demonstration scheduled to take place in Washington at the end of the
summer. Patricia and I had planned a vacation at the end of the summer's work and we left the city
before the scheduled date for the demonstration. Patricia insisted we return to the District of
Columbia for the March on Washington - she knew that ideals must be translated into a
demonstration of commitment. We drove back from New York with Haywood and parked the car
at a friend's house near the zoo. The emotions of that day, linked physically and mentally with two
hundred thousand people, feeling harmony and joy and an assurance that justice must triumph,
hearing and sharing the dream of Martin Luther King, these experiences were beyond description
and were a high point in my life.

In 1970 after having two biological sons, my wife and I adopted Jocelyn, an infant of
predominantly black ancestry with some white and indian blood as well. We have shared the joys
and pains of her life, becoming each day a little more sensitive to way in which our culture interacts
with a minority race. I have chosen here to study race as an issue in the law of Maryland then
because it is an objectively important issue in American life, but also because it is an issue with deep
personal resonance.

Law

The law is only one aspect of race relations, but it is a crucial one. Statutes and decisions do
not necessarily reflect the actual behavioral rules of the society. Laws may be violated with
impunity, and may indeed have been enacted with no expectation of enforcement. Behavior
unregulated by formal law may be governed even more strictly by custom and social sanctions.
Nevertheless, the enactment of legislation is significant information about the principles held by
those who dominate that forum. It is one of the best forms of evidence we have of the prevailing
ideas of past ages.

The study of the law reveals how society changes. The role of the law in determining the
structure of the society is exaggerated by a focus on legal structures. Economic, political and social
factors are the most important elements of change. Law is enmeshed in the context which they
provide. Yet law does have some autonomy; it interacts with other forces in ways that cannot be
predicted by nonlegal analysis alone. Legal developments are an important mechanism for

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